Earlier today I expressed my, um, less than fond regards for noted musician Michael McDonald. I was then made aware that Mr. McDonald is a fierce Obot, who has taken fan displeasure in speaking out for Pres. Obama. So, in expiation, some of Mr. McDonald’s oeuvre. BUT, only with the Doobie Brothers; I can go a lifetime without listening to “Sweet Freedom” again.

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I Keep Forgettin’

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Takin’ it to the Streets

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It Keeps You Runnin’

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Black Water

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Real Love

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One Step Closer

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Minute by Minute

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Manhole Covers

by Karl Shapiro

The beauty of manhole covers–what of that?
Like medals struck by a great savage khan,
Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,
Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,
Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,
But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed
With the great company names
(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).
This rustproof artifact of my street,
Long after roads are melted away will lie
Sidewise in the grave of the iron-old world,
Bitten at the edges,
Strong with its cryptic American,
Its dated beauty.

🙂
my friends (female) and i talk about this all the time–and we’re well into our 6th and 7th decades! seems so obvious to us–completely avoidable misery! just say ‘you look lovely’ with a sincere smile, and all will be well.

Totally agree, susanne. The sincere smile will boost reception, but clinching the deal is the use of an endearment. However, under NO circumstances speak a name. The wrong one could do untold damage to all the previous good intentions!

My favorite station here is KUSC, the local classical station. Every Saturday they have a program called “Arts Alive”, which surveys arts in my fair burg. One of the regular features is “Ask The Dean”, where the dean of the USC music school is asked a question from a listener. Today it was about singing. Specifically, are some people just hopeless at singing. The dean said there *are* some people who will probably never be able to sing; for example, cheer leaders who have just shredded their vocal chords in their careers. But he said that in a career of teaching singing, there was only one person he encountered who he couldn’t teach to sing on key.

I can, more or less, depending on the song, sing on key. Unfortunately, I have shredded my vocal cords thanks to a really, really bad case of a cold coupled with a sinus infection, which resulted in a 6 week laryngitis. Not that I was any great singer before, particularly according to a sister (all-state vocalist in high school) and a cousin (opera singer). 😆

My friend had trouble baptizing her first child (29 years ago) because they were’d members in good standing with offerings (Catholic church). I think it was offerings – it was some monetary reason. They left the church and never went back.

If you’re not registered in a Catholic parish, you don’t usually get to line up marriages or baptisms there, since you’re not part of their parish, although they’ll make exceptions.

Not sure in your friend’s case, but if parent(s) want to have their children baptized in the Catholic church, it usually means they want to have them raised in the Catholic faith, which means attending church, receiving religious instruction, etc., after baptism. I would never personally question anyone’s motivations in this matter.

There’s no fee for a Catholic baptism, although – like in most churches and other places of worship at baptisms, weddings, etc. – a small monetary gift of your choice is usually presented to the priest for conducting the sacrament.

Nobody follows you around after that to see if you’re attending church or putting money in the collection basket – that’s your decision and there’s no tithing. And you can attend any Catholic church without registering – many people do.

I have friends and family who didn’t like the way a priest confirmed something to them (although they knew the answer before the meeting), and they never went back to church again, and – thus – the bad press.

I consider practicing or not practicing any religion a personal choice, in any event!

Well, I was pretty surprised by her story. Not what I would have expected certainly. I know her parents were religious, but she has not practiced since then. It could be a case, as you suggested, that she kind of knew what the answer was going to be, but didn’t like it anyway. I completely agree about the personal choice aspect of it. To be true faith it can’t be anything else.

My sister and a very close friend were the ones I was thinking of, when I came up with that premise. They always blamed the church, even though they knew going in they weren’t meeting the criteria. Each to their own, of course.

My religion is the one I was baptized into and raised in, which I continue to love, but I consider that a gift (and, obviously, my choice to keep it and what it means to me – nobody’s holding a gun to my head!).

To me, my faith is between me and God. Nobody’s talking me into it or out of it at this point, and I feel the same about everybody else’s choice or non-choice! I really want to add an Amen here, but I’ll leave it at that. 🙂

Lots of good stuff to read on the Internet today! I’m really liking the Democrats messaging about the Koch Bros cutting jobs and buying elections. It’s a simple, clear message that workers can understand. And it comes after the message about Romney and Bain was so prominent in 2012. I remember a study the Dems did for 2012 and people just didn’t believe that the GOP actually meant what they said. This is a matter of educating the low info voter. They are the ones benefiting from ObamaCare too. I like it a lot.

This was an article from a couple of weeks ago

Why Democrats are tying Republicans to the Koch brothers: to give voters a framework to understand GOP's real agenda. http://t.co/VckG1KiYsg

TME, it became clear several weeks ago just how coordinated the branding of KOCHS = GOP = EVIL by the Democrats is going to be – with Senator Reid leading the charge. We can expect this messaging to become ever more intense in the months leading to 4 Nov 2014 and rightly so – it’s the TRUTH.

We face an enemy within that is just as, if not more so, dangerous than any enemy the great American experiment in democracy has faced since the day Jeff Davis resigned from the US Senate to lead the traitorous slave owners and dealers of the Confederacy. We have ZERO reason to think that what the Kochs and their fellow plutocrats are striving to do is to enslave the vast majority of Americans because their actions prove that that is just their agenda.

I like it because it’s clear and simple. There has always been a mistrust of the rich by the poor and once those voters understand how it is working it will be powerful. And I just love that ObamaCare is helping those same people at the same time. The ads mentioned in the article are local for that state and very effective. It builds on the Romney/Bain theme. They don’t make boogy men out of them, it’s plain and simple. I like it.

The way for democrats to win the mic-terms despite an avalanche of billionaires money in republicans’ coffers: make that money TOXIC. Make it so toxic that people will look at the avalanche of republican adds on tv with disgust. And will vote democrat.

Oh, and not only it’s necessary to make people aware of the undue influence of big money brokers, but it should be coupled with lots and lots of publicity about the new Ryan budget, which happens to be WORSE than the one he presented in 2012.

This is great! I know Sen. Harry Reid was severely criticized, even by so many people here at TOD, about his reluctance to nuke the Senate filibuster rule. Some accused him of being weak with no backbone. I respectfully disagreed. I think Sen. Reid is one of the most astute and courageous politicians. Political pundits were absolutely sure that he would not win re-election in 2010, but he did. In the 2012 he publicly challenged Mitt Romney’s veracity about paying taxes and courageously stood up against the media efforts to demonize him. He is now out there, basically alone among elected officials, publicly exposing the nefarious plans by the billionaires Koch Brothers who are razor- focused on destroying

“I think Sen. Reid is one of the most astute and courageous politicians. Political pundits were absolutely sure that he would not win re-election in 2010, but he did. In the 2012 he publicly challenged Mitt Romney’s veracity about paying taxes and courageously stood up against the media efforts to demonize him.”

Exactly the part that jumped out at me, Susanne. I always seem picky, but honestly I wish people (both Dems and others) would be more careful of how they share info when they write to educate. Many times I would retweet a seemingly supportive message or an article and change my mind because of (what I consider) an ill-chosen word or expression. Many a time I see ‘supportive’ articles for our side that contain subtle indications that the writer doesn’t really believe us, or has included outright slaps, while pretending to praise. Frustrating, because it’s not often their ‘fair and balanced’ favour our side.

thank you soooo much for saying this! i’m infuriated by the way praise contains underhanded snark when the msm reports on the president. and i completely agree that we, who are trying to make positive statements, need to be very careful about our choice of words and phraseology. picky or not, it’s important, imho🙂

I’ve read somewhere , a few years ago, that it is indeed the case. Aaron Sorkin was impressed by Senator Obama who was a rising star in the democratic party. It obviously inspired him … I’ve also read that the character of Josh was inspired in part by Rahm Emmanuel. I don’t know if the latter is true though.

Are you watching Season 6 ? The story line about Santos was my favorite… Excellent scenes with the tandem Josh/Santos…

susanne POTUS bracket was not a winner, he pick Michigan State to win the championship, Michigan State didn’t make the finals, they were knock out by Connecticut. After that game Connecticut tweeted POTUS and told him that they were sorry for busting his bracket, but he can jump on their bandwagon if he likes. Hopefully Connecticut and Kentucky will give us a good exciting game Monday night.

Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows. Every now and then, I check in on CNN to see if they’re still covering the missing plane story, round the clock. The look on Don Lemon’s face each time as he anchors his special reports never changes. He’s pretty sure he’s covering the story of the century, and will be up for some broadcaster award or something when he’s done. The CNN powers that be seemingly have convinced him of that.

To me, it’s a case of how many times can you ask the same question of the same people, over and over, round and round, without running out of the studio, screaming.

I swear they’ve all gone mad, and they are trying to drag us with them. Click.

‘ Peter Matthiessen, a roving author and naturalist whose impassioned nonfiction explored the remote endangered wilds of the world and whose prizewinning fiction often placed his mysterious protagonists in the heart of them, died on Saturday at his home in Sagaponack, N.Y. He was 86. ‘

Years ago, I went to a writing conference at Weber State in Utah and Matthiessen was the keynote author. I haven’t read a whole lot of his works, but what I did was pretty good, sort of a blend of James Michener and John Muir. I think his stories being about the wilderness was the reason Weber State– close to some beautiful mountains– was chosen as the location for this conference. It looks like I need to read some more Matthiessen again.